


My Baby's Fit (Like a Daydream)

by afterandalasia



Series: repugaytion: A Descendants Femslash Songfic Series [4]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Activist Aurora (Disney), Angst, Audrey Rose Character Study (Disney), Bisexual Audrey Rose (Disney), Canon Divergence - Descendants (2015), F/F, Getting Together, Minor Ben/Audrey Rose (Disney: Descendants), Minor Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants), POV Audrey Rose (Disney), Politics, Song: Call It What You Want (Taylor Swift), breaking up, somehow turned into Social Commentary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: When Ben declares that he is going to be bringing over children of villains from the Isle of the Lost, Audrey is horrified - but not just for the reasons that she tells him. She has kept quiet her own complicated feelings about magic, the way that it winds through her family still.Over the course of a few days, her world seems to shatter, but in it she finds herself and a hidden sort of inner strength. More than that, she makes the firm decision to be true to herself and to her heart, no matter what people might think of her for it.
Relationships: Aurora & Phillip & Audrey Rose (Disney), Ben & Audrey Rose (Disney: Descendants), Li Lonnie/Audrey Rose
Series: repugaytion: A Descendants Femslash Songfic Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1046475
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	My Baby's Fit (Like a Daydream)

**Author's Note:**

> [Call It What You Want](https://open.spotify.com/track/0tDfp0vFR95Gg6Mrhza3lX) on Spotify.
>
>> _"My castle crumbled overnight._   
>  _I brought a knife to a gunfight._   
>  _They took the crown, but it's alright."_   
> 
> 
> So, this... was originally going to a short fic with some femslashy stuff, but somehow it grew into a huge Audrey character study and I just... went with it. Ignores the books, the shorts set before the movie, and the animated webseries. As for Aurora/Leah's background, I've picked and mixed elements from both the animated and live action versions - Maleficent is still the villain and it was Phillip who woke Aurora, but Stefan was also an asshole. The rest should make sense as it goes. 

Audrey was fifteen years old the first time that papers reduced her to _Prince Ben's Girlfriend_.

In years to come, she would think that perhaps she should not have been so shocked. But at the time, she raged. How _dare_ they treat her as less than Ben’s equal? She can match him for intelligence, for schooling, for languages. Her mother is Sleeping Beauty, she is the last person in Auradon whose parents received permission to have fairy godparents for her, and she will have just as much chance as Ben to stand before the Council and give her application to become High Ruler of Auradon.

But no. She is just _Prince Ben’s girlfriend_ , and beneath the perfect face which she has long since learned to wear, her fury crackles.

People underestimate her, because she wears sweet dresses and sings like a dream and because her sport is cheerleading, not tourney. They ignore her 4.0 in Politics and History, her work with her mother’s magical creatures outreach charities, her pin-sharp memory.

She cannot bring herself to be angry in front of Ben. He has enough to deal with; he does not need to see the sense of injustice that she has long since learned to hide behind pretty smiles and polite handshakes. Instead, she talks to her father, who jogs beside her as she cycles around the grounds and burns through her frustration; or she talks to her mother who sits down and patiently listens, green sparks still glinting in her deep brown eyes, and then manages to say in patient tones exactly what it is that Audrey needs to hear to put steel back in her spine and confidence back in her smile.

Even if it doesn’t last forever, it’s enough.

She hugs her mother tightly, and breathes in the smell of roses that is too real to be a perfume.

She still struggles to decide on her position on magic. She has heard Merryweather’s longing and praising voice when she speaks about it. What it was like to perform little acts of magic to help around the house, or to assist each other. To magic a blockage out of a child’s throat, to clean an infected wound, to clean the water of a well.

But science can do those things now, where once only magic could. And all too often, Audrey still has her mother’s nightmares.

Only her parents and her godmothers know about the burn scars on her right hip and across her stomach. Even Ben does not know, Ben with whom she has been friends since before either of them could remember, who were babysat together and learned to walk and talk and play together. She does not tell him that magic has scarred her, as well. Her relationship to it is complicated enough; Ben does not have godmothers talking to him about its complexity, its power and its danger. He does not have the context that Audrey does.

Nobody asks why she insists that their cheerleading costumes cover their midriffs.

Ben is the one that the Council chooses to become High King. Audrey isn’t surprised, or offended; she knows that Ben is good, and will do well. She just worries that he puts too much faith in people.

Her great-grandfather trusted her grandfather, once. Audrey was just grateful that her grandmother is as smart as any ruler could ever want to be. The handful of years of Queen Leah the First’s reign had done much to heal what the damage of King Stefan’s.

Then again, perhaps it should be the High Ruler’s job to have faith in people. Ben’s council, older, having seen the struggles to bring Auradon together in the first place, will have enough cynicism for him.

The school goes silent when Ben announces that he is bringing children from the Isle of the Lost to Auradon, and Audrey cannot help but be among them. She feels like the bottom of her stomach is opening up, and she tries to hide her fear behind anger as she tries to talk to Ben about what he has done.

He won’t listen. Or no, that’s not fair to him, because he’s Ben so of _course_ he listens, but he does it with this sympathetic and _ever-so-slightly patronising_ look on his face, says that he understands and appreciates her concerns, but that he firmly believes that they need to have a chance.

That they are not their parents.

 _Of course they aren’t!_ she wants to scream. _Their parents failed!_

They might not be their parents, and she doesn’t believe in tainted blood or anything like that, but they grew up on the _Isle of the Lost_. And she’s heard more than enough stories about that place.

“Not here, at least,” she tries. “Don’t surround them with the children of their parents’ enemies. Let them have a chance at a fresh start without this much… celebrity.”

“They deserve every chance that we have, Audrey,” Ben says, soft and earnest. “Including this school. And,” he takes her hands, and she wishes she could actually be angry because it might be easier than being afraid, “I’m putting a lot on the line for this. I want to meet them myself. To explain to them.”

“They don’t have to be here permanently for you to explain to them,” she says, but she already knows that she has lost and then some. Ben can bend with a discussion like a stream going around a boulder, but anyone who has dropped things from a great height knows that water can break them as much as stone.

Ben kisses her hand, chivalrous. “Please, Audrey. Give me this chance, give them this chance. I really think they could surprise you.”

That’s just what she’s worried about.

Her nightmares return. She throws herself into her work, and produces a college entry level paper on the political discussions around the magic ban of twenty years ago. She knows that she does, because her teacher calls her in to discuss it, concern not quite managing to stay hidden in his voice.

She plays it cool. It’s something that her family was involved in, after all, of course she knows a lot about it and can tease apart the complicated arguments.

Her teacher might just believe her.

The night before the children of the villains arrive, she dreams of green fire and snapping reptilian teeth. She wakes with burns on her left shoulder, and makes sure to cover them with a pretty, baby blue cardigan before meeting up with Ben, running down the stairs to catch him just at the front door.

A look of surprise crosses his face, and she wonders for a heartbeat whether he is thinking of her as just his _girlfriend_ as well. Forgetting that she faced the same tests as he did, and still did _well_ , just not as _well_ as him.

Perhaps it was because she had admitted that, at sixteen, she still had areas of policy where she would be uncertain where to go.

“I… didn’t think that you’d want to be here,” he says, painfully earnest, painfully honest.

She gives him a fake smile, and realises that she can’t remember when she started doing that to him. Lying, without words.

“I want to be here to support you,” she says. At least it’s the truth, even if it’s only the part of the truth which she thinks that Ben would want to hear. He won’t want to know that she wants to see them for herself, wants to make her own judgement based on what she sees and not what biased or incomplete reports she gets from others. Even from Ben himself.

She slips her arm through his, to make a point, and the confusion slips from his face.

Part of her despairs. How is he supposed to spot ulterior motives in strangers, when he can’t even see it in someone that he has known for all of his life?

Audrey sees the children of the Isle for herself, and she is something between unimpressed and terrified. Flirting so over-the-top that she isn’t sure how it’s supposed to be attractive, some sort of strange belief that they can take their parents’ old titles without acknowledging their falls, and an obsession with Fairy Godmother’s magic.

But it’s the obsession that scares her, coming from a half-fae with eyes green enough to remind Audrey of fire, to make her curl closer to Ben despite the way that it makes the fresh burns on her right shoulder hurt. Audrey has faced nervousness before, but never fear this primal, and later she is embarrassed by herself for clinging to Ben and begging in childhood nicknames for him to remember who he knows, who he should trust, who he should remember exists as well.

She recovers herself enough to snipe at Mal, wreathed in smiles and politeness. She hopes that Mal is bound by her word as much as a full-blooded fae, that the spoken promise of forgiveness will be enough.

She worries that Mal is human enough to lie.

She lets people think she is jealous of her mother’s grace and beauty, but what she really envies is Aurora’s _calm_. Her ability to forgive, to move on, her graciousness.

“So…” Audrey takes a deep breath. “The kids from the Isle arrived…”

_“Oh, sweetie, was that today? I’m sorry, I meant to be there–”_

Audrey shakes her head, even if her mother can’t see it. “No, Mom, it’s fine, you were at the Andalasia conference and needed to be there in person. As long as you’re here on the phone,” her voice warms, “I’m good.”

 _“Do you want to talk about it?”_ It’s such a stupid question, but her mother makes it sound sincere. With a groan, Audrey flops back down onto her bed.

“There’s four of them, like Ben said.” Part of her was actually sort of surprised that all four had come. “One of them who obviously fancies himself. Another one tried to pull princess rank on us, like that’s going to do anything. One of them kept to himself.” She wrinkles her nose. “He might do okay.”

 _“And the fourth one?”_ says her mother, voice knowing.

“The one that I had nightmares about,” she says, quietly.

Her mother goes quiet for a long time, and Audrey’s heart pounds in her chest. _“You’ll be okay, Audrey,”_ Aurora says, and Audrey knows that her mother is worried when she uses her name like that. _“You can come home for a while, if you want. Stay with us for a bit. Or Merryweather could certainly decide she wants to visit her old friend Fairy Godmother, and you know what she’s like when she gets an idea in her head.”_

Audrey chuckles, weakly, but it sounds like too much risk of an explosion, to her. “I’ll be okay. But thanks, Mom. Just, um.” She winces before she even says. “Could you get Fauna to send me some more of that burn cream?”

Aurora inhales sharply.

“No, it’s nothing serious. One of the girls just caught her thumb when we were trying to use fire batons,” Audrey lies, quicker than she wishes she was able to. “And she doesn’t want it to scar. You know that Fauna’s stuff is the best for that.”

 _“Of course,”_ says Aurora, even if _she_ at least doesn’t sound like she totally trusts Audrey’s words. _“I’ll get her to send it right away.”_

“Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

_“I love you too, sweetie.”_

That night, she wakes with icy cold pain in her side. When she manages to turn on the light, she stares in horror at how the scars have changed.

She is in too many AP classes to see the ‘villain kids’, as they have apparently branded themselves, all that much. It worries her more. The only one that she really gets to see anything of is the one called Jay, and most of what she sees is that he is brutal – good, but brutal – on the tourney field.

Anyone else, she might admire the lean lines of their muscles, the coiled power in their movement. But anyone else, she would have a good idea where it had come from, and with Jay she has no idea and a lot of worrying possibilities.

She tries to warn Ben, she really does. But it’s harder as the bags beneath her eyes get deeper, more from fear of falling asleep than from actual nightmares themselves; it’s harder as she spends worried evenings talking to her mother on the phone, protesting that she does not want to come home, that she is fine but just wants to talk; it’s harder as she rubs Fauna’s burn cream into her arm and watches the skin clear up, and wonders how easy it is to slip a little magic into things without anyone noticing.

Of course, it’s not exactly _without anyone noticing_ when Audrey catches Lonnie talking about her new hair to some of the other girls, twirling it around her fingers. For a moment Audrey simply pauses, frowning and wondering where Lonnie got such good, natural-looking extensions, but then she hears Mal’s name and ice creeps down her spine.

She hurries in, grabs Lonnie by the arm, and hauls her straight away from the other girls. Lonnie actually looks surprised, and Audrey wonders for a split second whether that’s because Audrey has just been rude enough to drag her away, or because Audrey is actually managing to do so despite the firm curve of muscle that makes up Lonnie’s bicep.

“Uh… hi to you too?” says Lonnie, as Audrey drags her into the nearest bathroom.

She closes the door behind them. “Mal did your hair?”

Lonnie frowns. “Uh… yeah?”

Her stomach is churning, but Audrey keeps her gaze level and steady. She folds her arms across her chest, and taps her foot. “Oh, really? Now, _Evie_ , from what I’ve heard she would be able to do a cut and style and put in some extensions, but _Mal_? Please.” She might not share classes, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to keep her ears open. “Did she use magic?”

“Of course. It’s not like you can cut hair longer.”

Oh _shit_. Audrey isn’t supposed to know that word, but her father has used a few choice words in front of her from time to time, and besides, there’s the internet.

She takes a deep breath, even as she can feel cold sweat prickling down her back. “Lonnie, magic is _illegal_ , remember?”

“Hello?” Lonnie gestured around them. “Diplomatic stuff? It’s against school rules here, but they couldn’t apply the law anywhere that _Jade_ was coming to school, could they? Not to mention Queen Elsa insisting that it be in place so that accidental outbursts don’t get punished before people were old enough to control it.”

“Really? And was that an accidental outburst?”

Because Mal can use magic. _Mal can use magic_. The daughter of Maleficent, with the same fae blood running through her veins, doesn’t just have magic potential, she knows how to use it.

And Audrey of all people knows the difference. Because she’s never been tested, she never wants to try, but she’s read all of the theory, and the amount of magic that has burned through Aurora’s body makes it pretty likely that Audrey has magic potential as well.

“Woah, Audrey, it’s just _hair_. If I’d had it taken shorter, you wouldn’t even know.” But the amusement in Lonnie’s eyes fades as Audrey starts to shake, and her voice grows more gentle. “Come on, it’s not that serious.”

“It’s magic, Lonnie,” she blurts. Her voice isn’t shaking, at least, but she can hear that it’s tight and desperate as she looks into Lonnie’s eyes. “Look, I know that there isn’t anywhere near so much magic in Northern Wei. You grew up with, what, like… Mushu? And that’s it?”

Lonnie nods.

“I grew up with three fairy aunts and two parents who have been cursed and held captive by a fairy. I know about magic, Lonnie. Fairies who learned it fifty, a hundred years ago? Learned it like we learn about science. But if Mal is using magic, then she learned from her _mother_. Who I doubt was just teaching her hair spells.”

At least Lonnie looks a little sheepish at that. But magic is totally different in Northern Wei, far rarer, and far fewer families bear the scars and memories of what magic can do in the wrong hands. It’s not like Agrabah’s magic, but it’s not like the South Riding or the Summerlands, either.

That’s where Maleficent’s magic came from. It will be where Mal’s does, as well. The deep, ancient chalk bones of the land, that reach all the way down through the earth and the history of the world. It’s water and earth, it’s blood and bone.

It frightens Audrey, as well, how well she understands.

Audrey takes a deep breath. “Look, I won’t tell Fairy Godmother about this. Just… please, don’t let her do anything more than your hair.”

“Are you okay, Auds?” Only Lonnie ever uses that nickname for her, and it just makes Audrey more fearful of what, exactly, the children of the Isle of the Lost might do here. A slower, more gradual integration, and maybe… things would be different. But this is like thrusting a knife into Auradon, and right now it feels like half of the people she cares about most are right in front of the blade. “Are you not sleeping right again?”

Audrey resists the urge to run her hand through her hair, or otherwise mess up what she knows is a perfect look. “I’ve just got a lot of papers due soon. Dumb combination of classes.”

“Don’t… freak out about these guys. I had a business class with the young one, Carlos? He’s been accelerated to the same year as us in everything, and he is acing it. Quiet kid.” Lonnie shrugged. “Polite. Always asks before doing things.”

Quiet is dangerous. The fact that Carlos is so _different_ from the others is dangerous, because he’s still clearly found some way to survive on the Isle of the Lost. But Audrey can tell that Lonnie isn’t the one to talk to about that. “I’m not freaking out about them,” she lies. Or maybe half-lies, because it doesn’t really feel like freaking out when it feels all too justified. “Magic was just… an important thing, when I was growing up. Even my aunts didn’t speak about it casually.”

Lonnie nods, like she understands, and rubs Audrey’s shoulder. “You need a hug?”

Ben is too gentlemanly to ask things like that. Audrey nods, and lets Lonnie step in and wrap her close, into the scent of washing powder and some perfume that she gets shipped from home because there’s nothing like it available in Auradon. It smells mellow and subtle, and lingers for hours. When they shared a dorm in freshman year, Audrey quickly learned to pick her perfumes to complement it.

“I’m sorry,” she says, words part-muffled by Lonnie’s shoulder. “The thought of someone using magic on you just… worried me.”

“On my hair,” says Lonnie, firmly, as she draws back again. “Not on me. I just got… impatient.”

“Next time you want a makeover, come to _me_.” She manages to find a little bit of playfulness, and gives Lonnie a light shove. “You _know_ I know every store from here to Charmington. Even that little vintage thrift store which you got lost trying to find last summer.”

“That place does not exist.”

Audrey rolls her eyes, but it’s easier to joke about things like this, and she hopes that it will soften her fear enough to make Lonnie listen without realising. “I’ll take you there the next weekend you’re free from your absurd sports rota.”

In the distance, the bell rings, and she winces at the reminder that she’s now going to be late to Arabic. Because she was fighting with Lonnie in a bathroom over a magical haircut, and honestly on any other day that would sound funny. But… not right now, it isn’t.

She meets Ben for lunch, and is careful to bring her brightest smile and sunniest demeanour. But she feels her smile turn into something far colder and stiffer when he talks excitedly about how well the four kids from the Isle are doing, about how they’re really catching up in Remedial Goodness, about how Mal had said she was looking forward to the coronation to really experience the goodness of Auradon.

She wonders if this was how Queen Elsa felt, just before ice would spread out from her touch. The stone in her stomach, the plastic in her smile, the tightening of her throat until it is difficult to swallow even her own saliva.

“I think that sounds… like an excellent opportunity,” she says carefully, “as long as they’re properly guarded.”

Ben frowns. “They haven’t been guarded _here_ , Audrey. They’ve been fine.”

Not that Audrey is wholly comfortable with that, either; she has set up a webcam in her own room just to be on the safe side. But at least with the wards and protections on the school grounds, there would be some lines of defence in place.

“But you don’t worry that it might look like…” she chooses her words carefully, “like you’re flaunting your status? Evie was proud of her royal lineage, after all, and seeing you crowned could be… difficult.”

For a moment, Ben frowned. It doesn’t suit him, but neither does the way that he sets down his knife and fork and regards her almost sternly. “Like the way that you talking to Evie on her first day was difficult?”

Audrey’s shoulders are bare again, all sign of the burn marks gone. On the way to lunch, she had nipped into the toilets to touch up her makeup and hide the bags beneath her eyes, and while she is not sure that it would be good enough to pass a girl’s muster, it passes Ben’s. Audrey wonders what other things she knows that Ben does not.

Now, she stiffens. “I apologise,” she says, curtly. “I was taken by surprise and was… out of line.”

“It’s not me you need to apologise to,” says Ben, and Audrey’s hands tighten on her cutlery. He sounds like her father, and not in a good way. In the way that he had spoken to her when she was a misbehaving child, before she had become better at articulating why she was upset or angry and before he had become better at dealing with her as a _person_. “While you did show me in a bad light, it was Evie who was hurt by your behaviour.”

“Showed _you_ in a bad light?” All at once, she is fifteen again, and just _Prince Ben’s Girlfriend_. Audrey scoffs. “You could at least have the decency to say that I showed _Auradon_ in a bad light.” She put down her cutlery with delicate clinks and whipped her napkin smartly off her lap.

For a moment, Ben’s composure cracked, and in his wince he was just a sixteen year old boy again. The same way that she had just been a sixteen year old girl, sniping at Evie and Mal. But they were more than that, both of them, representatives of Auradon before they had even stood before the Council and Ben had been chosen.

For all that Audrey appreciates the twenty-year limit on ruling, she still thinks that all of them are too young. Surely, _surely_ there are some of the older generation who might have taken a turn more?

“I’m sorry, Audrey, you’re right–” Ben starts.

They’ve never argued since becoming a couple. They did when they were children, of course, bickered like siblings and were the best in the world at poking each other’s week spots because they knew each other so well. But somehow, as soon as they reached high school and started dating, they had never once fought, just kept it to the occasional polite ‘debate’ or one of them, usually Audrey, changing her opinion of something to match Ben’s. Because… because why? She has never even stopped to ask. Perhaps because some of her assumed that if either one of them would become next ruler, it would be him.

Because he’s the son of the last King, and Auradon is bad at leaving things behind. Because she is too brown, too female, too good at femininity to ever be taken seriously. Because he is a nice boy, who will be a good man someday, and Audrey is not sure that she can call herself a nice girl when she still cannot decide on what to think of magic and when she cannot find trust for the children of their enemies.

She gets to her feet in precise, controlled movements.

“When did I become an accessory to you, Ben?” she says, before she can stop the words from spilling from her lips. “I didn’t used to be, not to you. To the press, sure. But not to you.”

“You aren’t an accessory! I just… this is important to me, Audrey.” Ben rises as well, jostling the table and catching it to still it again. Then he sighs, resting both palms on the table, and she can see the tension in his shoulders. “This is my first act as King. If I fail, if they fail… they’re just children. Even if they tried to cause trouble, they couldn’t do too much. Fairy Godmother would stop them. Or I _know_ she still has the old fairy network she could call. But if they fail, if they get sent back… then that’s it for me, as well.”

“And if you go, then what’s to start kingdoms from declaring independence?” says Audrey, knowing where he’s going though the thought had never occurred to her before. She takes a single, heavy breath as the realisation sinks into her as well. Arendelle would go first, that was not even a question; Queen Elsa could reclaim her own sovereignty or pass it to her sister and nobody would really be willing to fight her. But there would be others. “Ben… why did you gamble so much on this?”

On four of them. On the worst of them, from what they claimed? Why not one, at first? She does not even know whose opinion he had sought about how many or who to bring over.

Ben shakes his head, where it still hung. “Because Auradon is built on cruelty,” he says, and it chills her to the bone. “Because if we keep this… this monument to our own vindictiveness on the horizon… how can we ever try to be good?”

“Things don’t have to be perfect to be good, Ben,” she says, more quietly. “I understand you want to make things good for _more_ people. But please don’t break things for everyone in trying to improve them for a few.”

The burns on her stomach seem to ache.

He straightens up, looks her in the eye. “If we leave them there, we don’t deserve to call ourselves the heroes.”

“We didn’t make that decision, Ben.”

“The King did.”

Being _Prince Ben’s Girlfriend_ was bad enough, but Audrey can feel the gulping darkness of being _The King’s Girlfriend_ and realises that she’s not sure she wants that path. Not sure that she likes the King as much as she likes Ben. She licks her lips. “I think that maybe… we should have a couple of days to think on this,” she says. “Clearly we’re both stressed right now.”

“More AP classes?” he says. Audrey suspects that she’s one of only a handful of people who can tell there is a hint of bitterness in his voice.

She raises her chin. “Drafting a proposal for one of my mother’s charities,” she says, just a little acidly. He isn’t the only one with responsibilities beyond High School, after all. “And my grandmother wants me to meet with the South Riding ambassador to discuss local amendments to a proposal to be given to _you_ in two weeks.”

Ben presses his lips together, but nods. “That does sound busy.”

“And you’re very busy as King, I’m sure,” she says. They both know that he’s only King-to-be, until the crown is on his head, and maybe it’s a little petty of her. But it’s no worse than his barb about her courses, and it’s almost a little more like when they were still children.

When they were still friends.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days, if you’re free,” says Audrey. She picks up her purse. There will be staff to tidy up the table, after all, and if the leftovers cannot be eaten then they will at least be composted. Aladdin in particular had been most insistent about the food waste standards at the school.

“Yeah,” says Ben, a little more quietly. “Take care, Audrey.”

She goes to leave, then stops, to look back for just a moment. “Be careful, Ben.”

Of _course_ he isn’t careful. Lonnie pulls Audrey aside the next morning to warn her about Jane’s hair, and maybe Lonnie has finally realised that she’s opened Pandora’s Box by inviting fae magic into the school or maybe she’s just being a good friend. Audrey appreciates it either way. Lonnie also pauses, clearly conflicted about _something_ , but when Audrey asks Lonnie will only say that it’s about the villain kids, that she doesn’t want to trouble Audrey with it, that she has to go.

Audrey wants to give the children of the villains a chance, but fear and exhaustion vie within her. She considers talking to them, one by one, to see if she can get a better read on them, but they’re always in their little group and she doesn’t want to take on two or more at once. Besides, she’s already made a terrible impression on them; she doubts that they will be honest with her now.

After all – her side itches, which is honestly worse than aching – it’s not like she doesn’t have a few secrets of her own.

So she goes to classes, and gets to cheer practice early so that she can give all of the squad a pep talk before they head out to face the Sherwood Falcons. The _Falcon’s_ cheerleaders include archery in their performances, after all, and Audrey knows that her team will need to be on top form to have any hope of matching them.

The game goes well, even Jay and Carlos seeming to handle the teamwork aspect of it all. Audrey almost considers softening towards them – perhaps she could talk to them after the match, cheerleader to players. It might be different than princess to children-of-villains. Her team are top notch, her own form is perfect, and she feels the lightness of endorphins and wishes that she had taken the time out for more trips to the gym before.

Smile on her face and sweat on her brow, she’s about ready to approach the team at the end of the match with the rest of the cheerleaders, when Ben picks up a microphone.

And it all

burns

down.

She feels hot, and cold, and dizzy, like she’s going to faint and is keeping herself standing upright by force of will alone. She watches Ben – who yes, yesterday they had spoken about taking a couple of days apart, but it had only been meant for them to get their heads on straight – declare his love for Mal, for the daughter of Maleficent, for a girl he has known for no time at all and who has too much cunning in those green eyes.

Her knees feel weak. She forces herself to stay standing. Her eyes prick with tears. She forces them to stay dry. Her hands clench into fists, and she does not restrain them from doing so.

She will _not_ be humiliated like this. Will _not_ be written down in history as the girl that King Ben cast aside.

There is only one friend that she has had as long as Ben, and she storms behind the bleachers to grab Chad’s arm so tightly that he yelps.

“Audrey!”

“Chad, I need a favour.”

He looks from her, to the scene behind her where Ben is still singing his newfound love, and she will deal with that later, she will think about that _later_ , when she is not shaking from fury and humiliation. But Chad nods, thank Goodness, and she drags him by the hand round the edge of the field and up the stairs right to where Ben is extending a longing look to Mal.

For a moment, Ben pauses, and there is silence. And she is sixteen and petty and part of her knows that she will regret this later, but for now she just wants to be furious.

“Chad’s my boyfriend now,” she announces, defiantly. “And I’m going to the coronation with _him_. So I don’t need your _pity date_.”

She grabs Chad and kisses him on the lips, mashing their faces together like she and Ben first tried out kissing when they were children. It’s distinctly uncomfortable and she really should have warned him exactly what sort of favour she wanted, but she knows that Chad will help her out anyway. She’s made up a couple of friends in the past to give him female dates instead of male, after all.

But it doesn’t really help, because it doesn’t deal with the fury rolling in her stomach.

She makes it back to her rooms before she screams, before she starts to cry.

This is one thing she _can’t_ phone her parents about. They were betrothed from birth, they dreamed of each other, they fell in love almost at first sight. They have the fairytale. They have never had to deal with heartbreak, have never broken up with anyone. They sit down and discuss at length when they disagree on something, and negotiate their way to an answer instead of shouting to one. Audrey used to think that was what all parents were like.

(She knows that her cousin will spread the news before too long, though. She texts her father, who knows that a text means she doesn’t want to talk on the phone right now, to say that she and Ben broke up yesterday.)

When there’s a rap at her door that evening, she doesn’t particularly want to answer it, and she grits her teeth and remains sulkily quiet.

“Audrey?”

It’s Lonnie. There aren’t many people to whom Audrey would willingly speak; she had even told Chad to go to the post-Tourney party, rather than have him stand uselessly in her room and not know what to say to her. But Lonnie… well, she deserves the door being opened.

“Coming.” She drags herself up to answer the door. Lonnie looks slightly disappointed when she sees Audrey, which Audrey feels like she deserves not just for her foolish stunt with Chad but for the tear stains on the cheerleading outfit she’s still wearing, for the makeup smeared on her cheeks.

Then Lonnie’s expression softens, and she wraps her arms around Audrey for the second time in as many days. “Want me to sneak into Swords and Shields and pulverise him?”

Audrey laughs, helplessly, into Lonnie’s shoulder, but it breaks off into a sobbing sound. She hears Lonnie close the door, and sobs a couple of times more, but her eyes already hurt and she’s cried herself out and this is ridiculous.

“No.” She sniffs and pulls back, going to wipe her nose on her arm before remembering the tissues on her bed. Lonnie releases her, and Audrey grabs them to wipe angrily at her face. “We just… we had a fight, yesterday, sure, and we agreed to step back for a couple of days, but this… this isn’t _like_ Ben.”

A horrible feeling is churning in her stomach, something that she fears she can’t even say because she’ll just sound like a jilted ex. A foolish, jealous girl. Not a princess who has grown up with fairies and the fairy-cursed, who knows magic enough to still have mixed feelings about it.

“I think he might be under a spell,” she whispered.

She looked up to see Lonnie, fiddling with her hair and looking uncertain. Lonnie opens her mouth, but says nothing, and presses her lips tightly closed again.

“I’m not – Ben isn’t impulsive like this. He plans everything. He thinks everything _through_. He _can’t_ have thought this through, it could have been a diplomatic incident.”

She hadn’t thought, before today, about how she and Ben might break up. But if she thought about it now, she would have expected Ben to sit her down and quietly discussed whether or not they should call a permanent end to it. Make it… mutual. Reasonable. Not throw himself into the arms of someone new before even talking to Audrey to end their relationship.

“Audrey…” says Lonnie gently.

Audrey grabs a tissue, wipes her eyes, and blows her nose. She lets it be noisy, indelicate in a way that she isn’t usually allowed, and lobs the tissue across the room and straight into the trash can. Absurd little things that nobody thinks she would ever be able to do.

“I know,” she says. “I know it sounds paranoid. But that was… not _like_ Ben. Running to _anyone_ like that would be strange for him.”

The fact that it was one of the children of villains made her fear more. The fact that it was the _daughter of Maleficent_ made her remember all of her nightmares of scales and flames.

Lonnie sighs. “If you’re still worried tomorrow, talk to Fairy Godmother. She can check for enchantments, you know that.”

Audrey doesn’t just _know_ that, she knows that she has special letters and permissions so that Fairy Godmother knows what enchantments are _supposed_ to be on her.

“I’m worried about _him_ ,” she says.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, Lonnie puts an arm around Audrey’s shoulders. “Look, I’ll text Aziz and tell him to keep an eye on Ben for the rest of the evening.” Audrey knows that Lonnie and Aziz are friends not so much for their bordering countries as for their shared love of sporting events and occasionally spiting the royal factions by reminding them of the new increasing equality of Auradon. “Then you can go to Fairy Godmother first thing tomorrow morning. It’s Saturday, even Ben has to have a lie-in, right?”

“Not usually,” says Audrey, with a sigh. She and Ben sometimes used to take breakfast together, and he had often been running or studying before that. “I’m not sure he sleeps, sometimes.”

Lonnie gives her a jostling hug. “Come on. Let’s watch trashy movies and point out the inaccuracies of royalty.” That bought a weak chuckle out of Audrey. “I’m sure there’s some new terrible ones been released with actors who are supposed to look vaguely like Ben but are so _not_ him.”

“That sounds good,” says Audrey.

Which is how she ends up spending the night she gets broken up with curled up on her bed with Lonnie watching one of the worst movies she has ever born witness to. From terrible plastic glass slippers to gowns clearly bought from the mall, Audrey critiques the etiquette and expectations while Lonnie shreds the bodyguards and the way that the young prince handles a sword.

Audrey curls up, her head on Lonnie’s shoulder, and it’s so _comfortable_. Well, aside from the crick in her neck watching the laptop, but whatever. Lonnie makes the right jokes in the right places, even after they squirm their bras out from beneath their tops to lie more comfortably, and it’s strange to think that it’s only been two years since they met.

She doesn’t intend to fall asleep, but it’s too easy. Lonnie makes her feel _safe_.

She hasn’t slept this well in _weeks_. She wakes up with one stiff arm and a fuzzy mouth from the chocolate that they ate, her head still on Lonnie’s shoulder and Lonnie’s arm draped around her. Blinking, Audrey looks around, only to realise that Lonnie is on her phone with her free hand, flicking back and forth between Chinese and English chats.

“Oh, morning,” Lonnie says, either psychically aware that Audrey had woken up or having caught some twitch of movement that Audrey didn’t even realise she had made. “You seemed to be sleeping well. Figured I’d let you rest. Aziz texted last night to say that he got Ben back to his rooms fine.”

“That’s good, at least.” Audrey reaches up to rub sleep from her eyes, and grimaces when she sees that there is mascara still smeared there. Urgh, it’s been years since she’s forgotten to take her makeup off before bed. True enough, she looks at Lonnie’s hoodie and sees smudges of foundation. “Oh Goodness, I am _so_ sorry.”

Lonnie shrugs awkwardly underneath her. “It’ll wipe off, don’t worry.”

“What time is it?”

“Like… a quarter past ten?”

“ _Fuck_.” She launches herself out of bed and to her feet like it’s some sort of cheerleading move, and heads straight for her closet. She can get away without showering as long as she gets into fresh clothes and washes her face, she can even skip putting on fresh makeup, but she _has_ to talk to Fairy Godmother before Ben gets through whatever work he has to do this morning. Surely he will at least finish _that_ before he does anything foolish under enchantment.

A glance over her shoulder tells her that Lonnie is now sitting up on her bed, but still looking confused.

“Sorry, no, I’m totally grateful you let me sleep,” Audrey adds, grabbing things from her wardrobe without looking because that’s what organisation can do. “I didn’t even have _nightmares_. But I am seriously worried about Ben, really, even this morning where, as you can see,” she gestured to herself with the hand not holding hangers, “not upset.”

Weirdly, she isn’t. There is still a sting of humiliation, of course, but the part of her which has been raised a princess and knows etiquette inside and out knew that Ben has made a far worse ass out of himself than out of her. But worry for Ben is still building, bitten into most notably by the need to apologise for Chad.

And, to be fair, gratitude to Lonnie.

Audrey dumps her fresh clothes onto the bed and hugs Lonnie round the shoulders; Lonnie doesn’t even ask what it’s for, just returns it for as long as Audrey holds on before letting her step back again. There’s still a worried frown on Lonnie’s face, and her hand lingers on Audrey’s forearm.

“Auds, don’t do something dumb, okay?”

“I’m going to carefully discuss my concerns with the Headmistress,” says Audrey, folding her hands around Lonnie’s, “given how long I have known the King and how conscientious his behaviour has been. In light of his new position, I will politely suggest that she should check that _nobody_ has taken the opportunity to use any magic upon him at such a delicate time.”

She doesn’t _want_ to believe that it’s the children of villains, weirdly. Oh, sure, she’s worried about them, doesn’t like the way that they seem to hunt in a pack and have terrible manners and, frankly, have some truly twisted coping methods, but she feels like she saw a little more of the real side of them – at least, of Jay and Carlos – on the Tourney field yesterday. And she doesn’t want them to fail, and Ben to have thrown away his crown.

But it would be an excellent opportunity. Ben is keeping things precariously balanced; a touch of magic to make him act impulsively, or irrationally, and there are any number of people who could gain from the chaos that could erupt.

Lonnie squeezed her fingers. “Okay, that sounds more reasonable.”

“I’ll let you go,” says Audrey, stepping back but keeping hold of Lonnie’s hand to tug her to her feet. At least Lonnie’s room isn’t all that far away. “Allison won’t be freaking out, right?”

A pointed waggle of Lonnie’s phone is all that it takes to make a point. At the doorway, Audrey resists the urge to hug her goodbye one more time, but does bounce up onto her tiptoes to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she says again, “for staying with me. For… caring.”

“Always have,” Lonnie points out, releasing her hand to wave goodbye.

She tries to look confident despite the pounding in her chest as she strides to Fairy Godmother’s office and makes her case for being concerned about Ben’s welfare. She cites the poor etiquette of his actions, the possible diplomatic ramifications, the impulsivity of his behaviour, and for good measure throws in her sudden thought that somebody could be deliberately trying to make the children of the villains look guilty of something.

Fairy Godmother listens carefully, lips pursed, but then slowly nods. “Very well. When he returns, I’ll check him over myself to make sure that nothing is amiss.”

“Returns?” Audrey tries not to let the cracks in her façade show.

“Well, yes, he’s just out this morning,” says Fairy Godmother, rearranging some papers on her desk in a way that looks to Audrey to be a little bit flustered. “On a picnic. But as soon as he gets back, I’ll check him over. Don’t you worry.” Her smile to Audrey looks just as fake as Audrey’s feels. “I’m sure everything will be fine. These little stresses can get to everyone, after all.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

She refuses to allow her legs to wobble as she leaves.

“ _Audrey?_ ”

Her father calls her in the middle of the afternoon, and as soon as Audrey hears his voice she can hear the panic there. All of the careful walls of calm that she was going to put on fall in an instant.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

“ _Yes, baby, I’m fine;_ ” and she knows that he isn’t as soon as he calls her _baby,_ but she won’t point that out. “ _Look, I’m heading to Andalasia, okay? There’s been an attack on the conference from some anti-magical creature separatists–_ ”

“Oh my Goodness. Is Mom okay?” She only distantly notices that she snaps the pencil she’s holding in half as she sits upright in her seat. “I can start driving in, like–”

“ _She’s fine. She’s fine._ ” Her father repeats it to himself like a mantra, and she wonders what else he knows that he isn’t telling her. “ _Look, I’m sure it’ll be on the news by this lunchtime, we wanted you to know so that you know she’s alright. She’s helping with the clean-up, I’m gonna head out there to give her a hand. Your Grammy’s gonna come to Family Day instead._ ”

The _last_ thing that Audrey wants to think about is the Goodness-damned Family Day when her mother’s conference has just been under attack. She supposes it says something that Grammy is willing to come to Auradon – that confirms that nothing terrible has happened to Grammy’s only child, after all – but the composure of Queen Leah I of the Sudreiten is all but legendary. The woman faked her own death to escaped the tyranny of her husband, and returned collected and cool after his death to reclaim her land.

Aurora could be in hospital and injured, but as long as there is no call for immediate concern and nothing urgent, Grammy would still consider it better to keep things running as they are supposed to. She has common sense in her concerns, she has told Audrey often enough, but Audrey was raised a princess of Auradon, and not a Crown Princess of the Sudreiten. Her parents have allowed her a little more of an impetuous heart.

“Dad, don’t worry about Family Day. What’s going on with Mom?” She fumbles her TV to the twenty-four hour news channels, mutes it and turns on the captions all in a couple of seconds. Strange, how her hand has not started shaking yet.

Sure enough, there’s footage on the screen already, and Audrey feels like her throat is about to close. Her father had said an _attack_ , he hadn’t said a Goodness-damned _bomb_ which is the only way that Audrey can think of for the amount of building damage she can currently see. She is about to beg more information of her father when she sees her mother on screen, being interviewed for the live news, sleeves rolled off and scarf protecting her hair. Audrey’s eyes blur with tears, but she blinks them away to be able to properly read the captions as Aurora stands defiant against the mess and states firmly that she will continue to stand for magical creature protection.

“ _-drey? Baby, are you still there?_ ”

She realises abruptly that she had tuned her father out, and a couple of tears do slip free as she blinks a few more times. “Sorry, Dad. Turned on the news, um, but it was good timing,” she adds quickly, knowing that her father will sigh otherwise, “Mom’s on, live. I can see she’s okay.”

“ _Oh – okay. That’s good._ ” Her father’s always been better at actions than at words. Even before they got better at communicating with each other, she loved him for his willingness to help her build a treehouse, to help her take her toys apart and put them back together, to learn to swordfight with sticks. “ _There’s probably going to be a lot of work to do, which is why I’m headed out, and I can take your Mom some of her ‘help’ clothes instead of her ‘conference’ clothes._ ”

Audrey manages a week giggle. “Do you reckon she’s tried to swap clothes with one of the camera people yet?”

“ _If she saw someone with cargo pants, I’m sure that she has. Everything’s gonna be alright baby, okay? I just wanted you to know first that we’ll be out there longer._ ”

It’s only days until Ben’s coronation. Audrey swallows. “Yeah, I understand. It’ll be nice to see Gammy again. And don’t worry about the Coronation, okay? Since Ben and I, uh, since we broke up, I’m not going to be in the front row with him. I’ll be in the gallery with the other Royals.”

She had almost forgotten speaking to the Fairy Godmother, only a couple of hours ago. She’ll need to head back, though doubtless Godmother will already know through the old fairy network. Even if they use phones today more often than communication portals, old habits die hard.

“ _Okay. I’ll get her to call you as soon as she’s free to. Love you, baby._ ”

“Love you too, Dad. Give my love to Mom.”

“ _I will_.”

She manages to hang up the phone before she starts to cry again.

Fairy Godmother reassures her that she can have time off next week if she needs it, to visit Andalasia, but that from what she has heard from Merryweather the situation is already quite under control.

She doesn’t suggest that Ben head out there which, although obviously the right choice, does make Audrey’s hackles rise a little out of sheer reflex. He is two days from his coronation and is dealing with children of villains in the capital city, and the last thing that he needs is this on his plate as well. The travel alone would be too much.

But Goodness damn it, she still wants to hear him _offer_.

Godmother also adds, cheerily, that she has checked Ben on his return from his picnic with Mal and there is no sign of any enchantment on him.

“With Mal?” Audrey says, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise considering Ben had been declaring his love for Mal just the previous day, but it still rankles. She sees Fairy Godmother regard her more warily, and restrains herself from saying anything. Swallows. “Have you checked her for enchantment, as well?”

“My dear, she is half-fae, it would be very difficult to perform that sort of ritual. More complicated than the way we must perform it for you yourself,” says Fairy Godmother, briskly. At least Audrey has build up enough of a good reputation over time for Godmother to speak to her, rather than telling her it is none of her business. “Besides, what would anyone gain from casting enchantments over her? You said yourself your concern for Ben was due to his position.”

Because if the children of villains were not determined to be villains themselves, then it left them very vulnerable to being made to seem them. But Audrey sets her jaw, because she can sense that she will not get further along those lines.

“I did not think she seemed the sort for picnics,” she says instead, tautly. “But I suppose she is the leader of the group; perhaps Ben simply wished to speak to her one-to-one.”

She watches Fairy Godmother’s face intently, but her aunts are not… like this. They do not worry about shielding their emotions. As it is, Godmother simply folds her hands and smiles.

“Perhaps so.”

There is no way that Fairy Godmother cannot surmise Ben’s intentions, and they both know it. He has ignored diplomatic and royal work to go on a date with Mal, daughter of Maleficent – has been _alone_ with her! – and Audrey wishes that she did not feel like she was the only one trying to look out for Ben.

She leaves, feeling exhausted by the day, to work on the charity proposal that her mother would be delighted by and grateful for when it was done. At least that, if nothing else, is waiting securely for her.

The nightmares get worse. Audrey wakes up screaming, tears on her cheeks, the burns on her side red and raw when she scrambles into the bathroom to check them in the mirror. She curls up in the shower as the night turns to dawn outside, letting the hot water soothe her skin, if not her mind.

No matter how she tries, she can’t block out the images in her head of a purple-scaled dragon with glittering green eyes, digging its claws – _her claws_ – into Ben’s flesh and then biting his head from his body. She wishes that she didn’t know what it meant, what her sleeping mind is screaming to her waking one.

It makes no sense, if Ben is not enchanted. His actions were not those of anyone in their right mind, let alone the thoughtful and concerned King that she knows he wants to be. The only answer she can think of is an enchantment too subtle to be seen, or some new sort of thing that they have brewed up on the Isle of the Lost to bring back and sow horror around them.

She didn’t _want_ it to be them. Tried desperately to deny that it was, even as it became more and more clear that something was _wrong_. But as she drags herself from the shower and massages Fauna’s burn cream into her side again – these scars, and these scars only, will not fade to it – she knows that she cannot avoid it any longer.

Mal, daughter of Maleficent, is to blame for what has happened. And as Audrey scowls at the mirror, then catches herself and forcibly smooths her expression again, she decides that she will not let the day end without confronting Ben about it.

Grammy does not drive, as many of the royals do and enjoy to do; she gets chauffeured, and her driver Hannah is as non-nonsense and unflappable as she was when Audrey was a child, just a little more grey at the temples. Grammy does at least allow herself to be hugged, holding Audrey a touch tighter than normal and for a second longer.

“Now then,” says Grammy. “You look perfectly presentable. Let’s have a walk around the gardens and you can catch me up on everything.”

She wishes that there were more good news to share than there was.

The morning passes easily; Family Day is as much an excuse for the royals to mingle and chat as it is for students to see the families they can text and Skype on a daily basis or visit at the weekend. Despite the throbbing pain in her side and her constant fear that her makeup will smudge and everyone will see how terrible she looks beneath it, Audrey manages to relax somewhat. She even leaves Grammy chatting with Prince Eric while she goes to get a fresh drink for her.

When she returns, she realises with a jolt of fury that _Mal_ is talking to her grandmother. That the children of the villains have arrived to play at innocence in a garden full of some of the most important people in Auradon, just two days after leading King Ben into a disgraceful and out of character public display. Her hand tightens around the handle of the glass, she tilts her chin, and walks back to her grandmother’s side.

“Oh, Audrey,” Grammy says with a smile she doesn’t mean, then nods to Mal. “This young lady was just saying–”

 _Lady_ indeed. Audrey resisted the urge to snort. “Grammy,” she said tersely, “I don’t think you want to be talking to this girl.” The word is deliberate, and she sees her grandmother pay attention to it and turn a more careful gaze back on Mal. The look Mal gives her is challenging, and Audrey knows that she should not bite but cannot help it. “Unless you want to take a hundred year nap.”

Mal half-flinches, but fury flashes in her eyes, and _there_ is what Audrey had feared and dreamed of and tried to pretend was just a figment of nightmares. The slumbering horror of an inhuman, dragon soul hidden behind the innocence of a girl’s face. The same inhuman soul that had carried Maleficent through her petty furies.

Then she puts on a transparently fake smile.

“You!” Grammy hisses, and that is not all the reaction that Audrey had expected. She looks round, feeling a jolt in her stomach at hearing vitriol like nothing before from her composed, collected grandmother. “How – how are you here?” She looks Mal up and down, releasing Audrey’s hand. “And how have you stayed so young?”

People are staring, and Grammy’s voice is rising, and Audrey realises that she may have started something that she cannot control. She puts a hand on her grandmother’s shoulder and is shocked to feel her trembling, regret knotting in her throat as people gather around.

Ben gets there first, and puts his arm around Mal. “Queen Leah! It’s okay,” he says, quickly. Audrey scans around them, but it is too late for discretion; the other children of the villains are approaching, surrounding them, but Chad jumps to her aid and the Fairy Godmother is bustling over and all eyes are on them. Audrey fixes her eyes on Ben; this might be the test of him, she supposed. Ben smiles. “Maleficent is still on the Isle. This is her daughter, Mal.”

The name doubtless does not help. But Ben’s smile and manner are better than they were two days ago, his eyes clearer and his words clearly carefully chosen for all that they must be spontaneous.

Subtler magic? Or has he truly bought into the lies which they have spun?

“Don’t you remember my proclamation?” he adds, eagerly. “To give the new generation a chance?”

Grammy looks at him in disbelief. “A chance to do what, Ben?” she asks, words ringing with the crispest of enunciation, heavy with a lifetime of knowing just what magic and the pursuit of it could do to people. She of all people knows that she should address him as formally as he has addressed her, and it would shock Audrey at any other time that she has not “To destroy us?”

Shaking her head, Grammy looks around. The Fairy Godmother tries to step forward and speak, but even she fails to find words as Grammy raises a hand to her. “You remember, don’t you?” The silence cuts like a knife. “The poison apples, and the spells…” Grammy’s eyes turned back to Mal, hard and unwavering and hurt like Audrey had never seen them. “My daughter was raised by fairies because of your mother’s curse. Her first words, her first steps… I missed it all.”

Audrey has never seen her grandmother like this. Grammy turns away, wraps her arms around herself, and for a moment Audrey sees a woman sold by her father, dismissed by her husband, torn from her child.

Expressions flicker on Mal’s face, and she steps forward, reaching out. “I’m so–” she begins, and damn it all if she doesn’t sound earnest.

But Audrey is good at sounding _earnest_ , as well.

“No!” says Chad, swooping in between Mal and Grammy. With everything that’s happened, she hasn’t even had the time to apologise to him for what happened at the game, and here he is defending her again. “You stay away from her!”

“Don’t do this, Chad,” says Ben. Reasonable. Diplomatic.

Chad scoffs. “They were raised by their parents, Ben,” he says right back, unafraid of the boy called King with whom they used to play as children. “What do you think villains taught them? Kindness? Fair play? You–” Chad points at Mal. “– _you_ stole another girl’s boyfriend. You,” a jab in the air towards Jay. “You enjoy hurting people. And you…” Chad looked straight at Evie, who already looked uncomfortable, and shook his head. “You are nothing but a gold digger and a cheat.”

Audrey’s heart leaps into her mouth and she drops the glass in her hand as she steps forwards, in front of her grandmother and with no other real intention. Because Chad has never been good at diplomacy, has never been that good at realising that they are royalty as well as foolish teens and cannot think of things just in terms of their silly arguments. He speaks too rashly and doesn’t think deep enough. But Audrey can see flashes of _something_ in the children of the villains that is raw and guilty.

She has lit a fire. And now she cannot control how it burns.

Evie insults Chad, and he swats the mirror aside, but all it takes is that motion for Jay to be striding in swinging. Chad doesn’t back down even in the face of it, but even as Ben is hauling Jay off, still trying to salvage things, Evie comes and sprays _something_ in Chad’s face and he slumps to the floor.

There is shouting from around them. Chad lands on Doug, but it is Lonnie who manages to intervene and lower Chad to the ground.

“Chad?” He is limp and unspeaking and no, no, let this not be what she has done. Audrey drops to her knees beside him as well, patting his cheek. “Chad, wake up. Chad?”

There is more shouting around them, and she hears Lonnie and Ben calling after the children of the villains, but all that she cares about is seeing Chad’s eyelids flutter open again and him mumble something about a dream.

“Oh, thank Goodness.” She throws her arms around Chad, to which he mostly looks confused, and looks up to see her grandmother talking sternly to Fairy Godmother about safety and standards and expectations. There are few who would talk to any fae in such a manner, let alone one as powerful as Fairy Godmother, and if she is honest Audrey is a little scared of her grandmother for the first time in a great many years. Queen Leah ruled in a time when fae still roamed freely and before several villains had been brought to justice–

(Or to King Beast’s version of justice, something whispers inside her mind, and it sounds like Ben.)

–and she is certainly not afraid of one now.

“What – what happened?” says Chad. He looks down at himself, frowns at the grass stains on his slacks. “How–”

Audrey helps him to his feed, or maybe hauls him up, she isn’t sure. “Evie used magic to knock you out,” she says, bluntly and cruelly, aware that there are still eyes on them. But this is not some supposition; they all saw exactly what she did. The children of villains, acting like themselves instead of the pretty façades they put on.

“There’s no proof that was magic, dear,” says Belle. “Some science–”

“Is indistinguishable, I know,” Audrey says. She really should be more polite, talking to the Dowager Queen, but she cannot help the bite and can see in Belle’s face Belle knows, as well, that it really was magic.

Fairy Godmother bustles in and dusts Chad down. “An investigation will be needed. Come on, young man, we’ll need to have you checked as soon as possible.”

When Audrey hugs her grandmother again, she pretends that it is just needing her Grammy, something just about acceptable at her age and given what has just happened today. She does not let anyone see the way that her Grammy is trembling as well, the sight of Mal combined with a display of magic and hostility winding together into something far worse than Audrey had ever meant to start.

She feels sick with herself. She feels vindicated.

She feels as if something in Auradon is on the verge of tearing apart.

Fairy Godmother finds latent traces of magic on Chad, but not enough to be a full felony under law as the evidence faded before her very eyes. Ben furiously refuses to listen to her, or to Queen Leah, or to Audrey, and when he stands alone with Audrey in his parlour she can see cold anger under his skin. King Beast is infamous for his temper, still, but somehow the cold anger worries her more.

“You had no right to do that,” Ben says.

“I didn’t want Mal talking to my grandmother,” she replies, refusing to look scared in front of him. Refusing to give in to her own guilt or to the righteous ire she can almost smell on him. “None of the rest of that was my doing.”

Ben gives a minute shake of his head as he looks at her. She doesn’t need to ask.

Audrey grits her teeth. “None of the rest of it was my _intention_. I’m sorry that it got out of hand, but all I wanted was my grandmother safely away.”

“There were plenty of ways you could have done that. You didn’t even need to tell her who Mal was, let alone stoop to insinuating that Mal is a threat.” He’s right; he’s right, and this is why he could make a better ruler of Auradon than her, and she is angry with both him and herself for it. “And now the school is in uproar, Mal and the others have all locked themselves in the girls' room and aren’t speaking to anyone, I’ve got a dozen sets of parents demanding I send them back to the Isle or kids will start getting pulled from the school, and I have no doubt that your grandmother is more upset than she needed to be.”

That was more like the Ben that she remembered, somehow. The one who knew exactly what would hurt her the most, even if when they had been children it had been saying that her lipstick was smudged rather than anything like this. They had known each other so well, once, that they had known each other’s weaknesses like they were their own.

She wasn’t sure that she knew Ben any more.

“Most of those parents have been threatening that since the moment they read your proclamation,” says Audrey flatly. “These aren’t children, Ben. They’re as close to adults as we are.” Too close, for their age, just as many of their parents had been forced into adulthood too young. “Imagine unlearning everything you knew to become a villain. That’s what they’re going through right now. You think a few weeks here – most of which they’ve been keeping to themselves – is going to change that?”

“They would never have had a chance to change on the Isle!” says Ben. He waves to the window, the one looking right over the Isle of the Lost, the one on which Audrey has never seen the curtains drawn. The Isle weighs on Ben like his own personal sin, she knows it does. “At least bringing them here, _giving_ them a chance… that’s the right thing. I don’t see how you don’t get it.”

“I don’t see how you don’t get the danger of the way that you’ve done it!” she spits back. She leans one hand on the back of the chair and puts the other on her hip, and doesn’t know whether they’re bickering exes or embroiled members of court. “You could have made it low-key, brought a handful of lesser-known children over and put them into foster homes, gauge their academic development, have them see psychiatrics and therapists. Instead you bring over the biggest names you can muster – although not _Gaston’s_ children, to which I imagine your father would have objected more–”

The uncomfortable way that Ben shifts before he leans both hands on the desk to cover it tells her that she’s hit the spot.

“–and drop them into the school with the highest expectations in Auradon, in the middle of the academic year, among the very people that they have no doubt been brought up to hate as much as we,” she gestures to them _both_ , “have been brought up to fear them. You gambled your crown on a publicity stunt, Ben,” she says, as it starts to seem far too clear, “and now it’s coming back to bite you in the ass.”

“Don’t be absurd–” says Ben, but it sounds like his heart’s not quite in it.

“Don’t go blaming this on me when you didn’t think through the consequences!”

Ben shoots upright again, pointing at her, but his hand is tight and shaking and it looks more defensive than anything else. “No, Audrey, don’t go blaming _me_ for the way that people have behaved towards them. They’re hurt, and they’re underprivileged, and the more time I spend with them the more I wonder whether our parents are the villains for locking innocent children away with criminals.”

“That doesn’t mean–”

“Our _life_ is a publicity stunt, don’t you get it? Our titles, this school, this crown that’s supposed to go on my head tomorrow. We live in a world so saturated by heroes that we only understand grand gestures. I don’t just want to make it clear how I intend to go on as king, Audrey, I _need_ to do it.” She’s with him, even as he sighs, until that faint bitter note comes back into his voice again. “You of all people… your family had dispensations for magic. You know how our laws right now are too prohibitive!”

 _Her_ of all people? Whose family has been aided and dogged by magic for three generations now? Why not Chad, whose family only benefitted from magic against the evil of people?

Audrey pulls her hair over one shoulder in one sharp, angry move, and in a show of cheerleading flexibility grabs the zipper at the nape of her neck and pulls it down fluidly. Ben looks at her in disbelief as, without breaking her gaze, Audrey tugs off first one and then the other sleeve of her dress.

“Audrey, what are you–”

She pushes her dress around the waist, revealing the scars, and Ben falls silent. Until just days ago, they might have passed for a childhood accident, one that only science, and not magic, faced. But the taut, shiny skin has a new, telltale sign.

Green veins, like silver in its ore, streak across her skin. They have a fiery glitter in the sunlight streaming in through the same window that shows the Isle.

“I know the magical laws inside and out, Ben,” she says, and at another time she might have laughed at the ridiculousness of standing in her bra to have her conversation with him. But his eyes are firmly on her scars, and it strikes her again how distinctly platonic their relationship, even when supposedly dating, has always been. “I know the draft versions. I know which clauses got added, and which got removed. I know the versions that Queen Elsa petitioned for, and what she got. I know the guidelines for magical potential testing, and for magical education, and I know that you’ve got a half fae, the son of a former djinn, and the daughter of a sorceress running around without even the slightest protections for _their own_ sake, never mind anyone else’s.”

She sighed.

“I was seven years old when I got these scars,” she said, more quietly. “They won’t fade. Even Fauna’s creams just prevent contracture. But these? This green?” she points directly at one of the delicate lines. “These came up the night _they_ crossed the barrier, Ben. Are you going to tell me that’s coincidence? Because my mother’s gift of beauty stops her from _getting_ scars, but I know she’s had disturbed sleep every night as well that unseelie magic has been back.”

“Mal can’t help what she is,” he says, voice dropping as well. He sounds regretful, and Audrey wonders if he has ever worked this hard to defend _her_. “You’re… you’re right, I should have had Fairy Godmother or… or someone talk to them about their magic potential. But I didn’t want to overwhelm them like that.”

“I think today proves how much everyone has been overwhelmed.” The scars have done their work, and she pulls her dress back up again, but cannot get the right angle on the dress without the little cord she normally slips through. “Urgh. Zip me up, will you?”

Ben doesn’t speak as he walks round and does her zip back up again, a gentle move, then rests his hands on her shoulders. She shakes them off immediately, too parental again, and turns to face him. It’s gratifying that he is the one who takes a step back.

“Your grand gesture is going wrong, Ben,” she says flatly. “What are you going to do to salvage it?”

He laughs, half-scoffing. “Why? Do you intend to help me, or sabotage me?”

“I don’t want to see Auradon burn.” She tries to make her gaze bore into his, tries to summon every inch of her grandmother’s composure and her mother’s resilience. “So what are you going to do?”

Reaching up, Ben pinches the bridge of his nose. There are bags under his eyes, as well, though far less pronounced than hers. “I’m going to talk to Fairy Godmother about starting them on magical education after the Coronation,” he says finally. “All of them – Carlos’s father isn’t recorded on his birth certificate, he needs testing as well. Make it part of a medical check-up. I’ll look at ways to get them more integrated, not… just together as the four of them. I figured it was a support network, but they need to connect to people outside as well or this won’t work. Audrey, will you do something to help me?”

“Tell me what it is before I agree,” she says honestly. She isn’t so petty as to turn him straight down, but she won’t sign a contract whose small print she hasn’t read.

“Smooth things over with some of the other Royals? Remind them that… I don’t know… that Auradon Prep is the best school there is, and that they should trust us to do the right thing to keep people safe.”

She thinks of the potion Evie had sprayed that day. “Are we safe, Ben?”

“Are we ever safe?” For a moment, he’s young again, they both are. “I’ll make things as safe as they can be, but you know we can never be wholly safe.” His voice softens. “I’m sorry about the bombing at the conference.”

Just a day after fearing for her daughter’s life, Grammy had been faced with the blood of the woman who had already caused them to lose so much. Yes, Audrey should have realised there would still be fresh pain beneath her grandmother’s calm exterior.

“The news said no fatalities,” says Audrey. “And it won’t stop my mother’s work with magical creature protections and integrations, you know that.”

“And I intend to listen to her,” he says, and doesn’t add what they both know is the second half of the sentence, _‘unlike my father’_. “Tell people that you’ve spoken to me, and I have learned from… what’s happened. I won’t make the same mistakes again. And maybe you should talk to the Headmistress about those scars? Or one of your godmothers? If they’ve changed recently…”

Then it likely meant that Audrey had more magic in her than her family had prepared for. The checks she had avoided all her life loomed afresh. “Once things are sorted in Andalasia, and sorted here. I won’t put multiple pressures on my family at once. But after the Coronation, okay?”

He extends a hand. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

She missed being his friend a lot more than she has missed being his girlfriend, she realises. Pulling him in, Audrey wraps her arms around Ben’s shoulders, even if she needs to stand on tiptoes to do so. “Thank you for coming back,” she says softly.

He makes a faint, confused sound, but she doesn’t want to have to give a full answer. She drops her arms from around him and leaves before he can ask anything more of her than she has already given.

Audrey spends the afternoon talking to the various Royals, a careful mixture of serious and blasé as she says that she’s spoken to Ben and he’ll improve things. She hopes that she’s telling the truth. She calls her Grammy, who is of course staying in the best hotel in the city, and reassures her that everything is okay, that Mal is within the school and therefore can’t do anything, and she thinks of Lonnie’s and Jane’s hair and knows that she is lying but just wants her grandmother to feel safe again.

For that, more than anything else, she feels guilty.

Being a Princess – capital P – Is more tiring than usual when she’s had one good night’s sleep in a week and her side has been throbbing the whole time. But Audrey manages it, even if she really _doesn’t_ want to have to go down to the canteen and be in front of people, doesn’t want to touch up her makeup and check her clothes and have to look people in the eye.

She takes out her phone, which she is almost sick of the sight of, and weighs which of her friends might actually still like her enough to share dinner with her. She could go and visit Grammy, but that would mean facing Grammy’s pain, and Audrey knows that Grammy does not like people intruding when she can finally get some time alone.

She doesn’t expect to find a text on her phone, but opens her messages with Lonnie with a frown. Lonnie likes the children of the villains; it wouldn’t surprise Audrey if she’s angry about today.

It turns out there are a series of texts, each one about an hour apart.

**Lonnie:** You okay?

**Lonnie** : You looked freaked out today.

**Lonnie** : Want me to bring some dinner to you?

**Lonnie:** I’m bringing cha siu bao.

Well, at least that makes the decision for her. Audrey finishes changing into something more comfortable – she’d been in sweat pants even while making the calls, but had kept her dress on over the top – and makes a half-hearted attempt to tidy her room before flopping onto the bed and wondering whether she would do anything differently if she went back.

The children of the villains had shown their true colours, today. But so had some of Auradon’s children, as well.

Lonnie showed up before too long with the promised cha siu bao, a bag of ginger candy, and her hair scraped back into a ponytail rather than in the long curls she’d been wearing it in earlier.

“I’m sorry. You should be with your parents,” says Audrey.

Lonnie gently slips into the room past her anyway. “My brother’s got a set on tonight, so of course my mother wants to go to that.” Mulan still looks unfairly young, and Audrey would honestly not be surprised if she got carded on her attempt to enter the building. “And my father and Coach Jenkins are going out for drinks. They invited me, but I said I had someone I needed to see.” She pushes the door closed for Audrey. “How are you doing?”

“Do you mean after traumatising my grandmother, after prompting Chad into a fight that got him magicked unconscious, or after having an argument with Ben?” says Audrey, folding her arms. She immediately regrets how defensive it feels, and uncrosses them again. “Or just that my parents are dealing with an anti-magical creature terrorist attack.” Not that most of the media is using the word terrorist yet, but Audrey knows full Goodness-damned well that’s what it is. “It’s not been my finest weekend.”

“Come on. Let’s eat bao and mock bad movies again.”

They don’t actually pay all that much attention to the movies, this time chucking pillows onto the floor from the windowseat so that they can curl up there, Audrey with her legs slung over Lonnie’s lap and the bag of ginger candy curled between them.

“You really had a fight with Ben?” says Lonnie, either figuring that Audrey is calm enough to talk about it or unable to hold back her questions. “You guys don’t fight about anything.”

“You should have seen us when we were kids,” Audrey replies with a snort, and grabs another candy. It burns just the right way on her tongue. “We sort of learned to debate by arguing with each other, really. We weren’t discouraged, just told that we ought to make our arguments better.”

“My father showed me an armlock for when my brother tried to pull rank on me. He was stronger, I was quicker. Then my mother actually used to sit us down to figure out what was going on.”

Goodness, she misses her parents. Audrey curls closer to Lonnie, who adjusts the arm around her. “But, yeah. I told Ben he was turning the Isle kids into a publicity stunt, and he pointed out that we’re all just publicity stunts at this school.”

“VKs,” says Lonnie.

“Hmm?”

“That’s what they call themselves. VKs. Villain kids.”

“You’ve been hanging around with them more.” Audrey fiddles with the candy wrapper. “You aren’t mad at me for being rude to them?”

“They’re… difficult.” Lonnie rests her cheek against Audrey’s hair, and she feels so… warm. Sloppy and barefaced and barefooted, ignoring the movie they’d agreed on not even all that long ago. “And sure, I get what Chad means when he says they’ve been taught to be bad, but… they needed to be taught. They aren’t bad underneath it.”

Audrey shakes her head. “This can’t be the best way to help them.”

“Too late now.” Lonnie shrugs, which is sort of uncomfortable but Audrey gets it. Lonnie’s always been better at rolling with the punches, though; maybe Audrey is too used to having some sort of control over things, needs to get used to being on a second tier from Ben and not his equal any more. “They were pretty scared today.”

“So was my Grammy,” says Audrey grimly. “I didn’t realise… she’s always so controlled. She’s never said things like that before.”

“At a guess, those are things she wanted to say to Maleficent. And Mal was close enough.”

Grammy had more photos of Audrey than her parents did. Had half of the first lock of hair they had cut, had the other half of her first shoes. Had her baby teeth, in a little silk pouch. Maybe, having lost Aurora’s childhood, she clung more tightly to Audrey’s than even Aurora and Phillip did. “I spent the afternoon smoothing things over.”

“Do you feel better for having done that?”

It was just what she had needed to do, but Audrey is caught off guard by the question. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess so.”

“If everything goes well at the Coronation tomorrow, how about I introduce you to the VKs? One at a time. They’re less overwhelming like that.”

Audrey is painfully aware of the scars on her side. “Maybe,” she hedges. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to sort out once the Coronation is done. But… thank you. For the offer.”

Lonnie is so much a better person than her. Audrey felt the roiling guilt in her stomach again, for her sniping with the VKs, for letting her anger and fear get the better of her. She’s supposed to be a princess, after all, a representative of the goodness of Auradon. She should have had her argument with Ben at the beginning of this all; maybe then she could have helped, instead of making things worse by lashing out after they had happened.

Although, to be fair, that would have involved Ben being more honest with her about what he was planning to do. He has inherited the Council of his father; perhaps she could suggest that he put together a new one instead. Not all new, or all his age, but just refreshed and with new points of view on things.

Somewhere along the line, she sits back so that she can look over Lonnie properly, the line of her jaw, the pink of her lips still darkened at the corners by whatever lipstick she’d started the day wearing. They’ve only known each other for about two and a half years, now, but Lonnie is one of those people who effortlessly moves across social boundaries and despite their differences, Audrey has been closer to her than just about anyone else from day one.

Dating Ben was something like a duty. It made her appreciate why Jasmine had wanted so much to marry for love, but Audrey had always figured that at least she was friends with Ben, that at least they could be allies no matter which one of them – if it was one of them – became ruler. She’d told herself that was more important than silly things like who she _wanted_ to date.

She’d known from early on that she hadn’t _envied_ Lonnie’s looks. Maybe how good her legs looked sometimes, when she wore skirts, but Audrey knew how she looked and how she wanted to look. And Lonnie has always been pretty in her own right.

Lonnie catches her looking, and frowns slightly. “Everything okay?”

“I was just thinking how pretty you are,” says Audrey, because she’s sick of lying or half-lying or politely folding things away. And she doesn’t actually know whether Lonnie’s straight or not, but she is at least pretty confident that it wouldn’t ruin their friendship if Lonnie were.

Instead, Lonnie goes pink, and looks down at the ginger. “Oh.”

“If you, uh, want me to move then I can,” says Audrey. “But it’s not like I’m gonna do anything if you aren’t interested.”

“I… figured you were straight. Ben, and then Chad…”

Audrey only resists the urge to roll her eyes because it’s _Lonnie_ , and clearly a flustered Lonnie at that. The flustering is quite cute, though. “I mean one, I’m bi, not gay. Two, Chad was really just to piss Ben off, I think he and I have, like, negative chemistry. And three, Ben was…” she feels the confidence in her voice trail off, and shrugs. “We were supposed to be an alliance, not a relationship. Us against the old regime type of thing.”

“That doesn’t really sound like something for the twenty-first century,” says Lonnie. She looks up cautiously to catch Audrey’s eyes again, looking curious and still pink about the ears and Goodness, she is cute.

“Probably not. But it seems like a good idea when you’re a pair of self-sacrificing idiots determined to change the world.”

Did Ben think of it that way? _Had_ he thought of it that way? When all of this was over, she needed to talk to him about that, as well. Make sure that they close things properly.

“So,” Lonnie says. “Is this your kind of blunt but kind of clumsy way of asking if wanted to go on a date after Coronation?”

“Or to Coronation. Although I was thinking of sitting with Chad and judging people’s outfits. You’re not enough of a bitch for that.”

Lonnie laughs, and even Audrey knows that it’s a weird-ass compliment but it’s an honest one and they both know it. “I don’t think they’d want _more_ last-minute changes to the seating. Besides, I don’t think you need to be accused of dating three people in four days.”

“Please. Chad will be chalked up to a rumour and I’ll be called a closeted lesbian. I could dance in a Pride Parade in a sequined bi flag and I’d still be called a closeted lesbian.”

“Would that… really be so bad?” Lonnie says, and for the first time since the beginning of the conversation she sounds a little uncertain again.

“Being one, or being called one?” Audrey raises her eyebrows pointedly. “Because, neither. People can come out when they want, and if the press are stupid enough to just call me _Prince Ben’s Girlfriend_ then I don’t expect them to bother checking on my sexuality before they write their clickbait.” Apart from any actually queer members of staff, she supposed. They might care enough to be vague, or to contact her to check. “Plus my parents and Grammy know.” Grammy had been politely disappointed about her breakup with Ben, but Audrey suspected that was more because she had known Ben for years and knew he was a good person. That he would not become what Stefan had. “I might try to influence what the press say, but I’ve long since given up caring when they get it wrong.”

Lonnie carefully took hold of her hand, lacing their fingers together, and Audrey _feels_ it in a way that no amount of physical contact with Ben ever counted. “Well, I’ll let you do your judging with Chad, and then… maybe at the party afterwards?”

Audrey has seen Lonnie dance. Chad does pretty well, considering how utterly useless he was when they started high school, but she’d always have rather watched Lonnie dance. “I think that sounds good.” She gives her hand a squeeze. “So, is this the bit where I ask if I can kiss you?”

“We’re both just going to taste of ginger,” says Lonnie, which isn’t _no_ , and the way that she smiles pretty heavily implies _yes_.

Audrey leans in, though not quite all the way. “I think we can cope with that,” she says.

As she hoped, Lonnie comes the rest of the way to meet her. And it’s good to finally kiss someone that she wants to kiss, who wants to kiss her back; to hell with anyone who wants to judge her because of it.

Lonnie leaves with a lingering goodnight kiss, and Audrey isn’t sure how she’s gone from diplomatic boyfriend to fake boyfriend to real girlfriend in a couple of days but it makes her feel a little more buoyed up when she awakes early on Monday morning. She checks her messages for anything from the other royal families, answers a few concerned ones about safety procedures at the Coronation – as if Fairy Godmother being there, wand in hand, isn’t about the most powerful safety procedure they could ask for since Genie and Eden have also headed to Andalasia – and sets about getting ready for the day.

Hair. Makeup. Dress. Explain to Chad over text why exactly she hadn’t warned him before the whole stunt on Saturday – she rolls her eyes and points out that she herself had about minus ten seconds warning of Ben starting up his musical number. Phone Grammy, because Grammy doesn’t like texting, to arrange a time for Audrey to get to the hotel so that they can be at the Coronation in plenty of time.

Her mother texts with an update on the situation. Genie might not be able to actively use his powers, but he’s still stronger and quicker than humans, and he’s got thousands of years of knowledge to draw on besides. Aurora has always liked him, anyway.

She feels more optimistic, even as she rubs in more of Fauna’s cream and follows it with a delicate layer of powder to stop it smearing on her dress. The children of the villains – no, VKs, that was what Lonnie had said they preferred – had lashed out yesterday, but Ben had said he would speak to them. Maybe it was just about feeling unsafe, in Auradon.

Maybe stealing Ben had just been what she had earned with her pettiness on the first day that she had met Mal.

She meets up with Grammy just at the arranged time, and even Grammy looks her over, smiles, and says that she looks beautiful. It’s rare for her to be so effusive in her praise, and Audrey squeezes her hands in lieu of hugging her, not wanting to crease either of their dresses. Grammy has also bought with her the family jewellery that she will be wearing for the day, and the metal is briefly cold on her skin before she gets used to it.

It stings still, a little, to see Mal riding in the carriage with Ben. Out of the school and therefore without the wards that would have theoretically reined in most of her power. More than that, Audrey knows that Ben won the role of King fair and square, but Mal has _not_ spent years preparing herself for the political role of being Ben’s girlfriend.

If it’s real, well, she’ll find out soon enough. Audrey will judge then how much sympathy is appropriate to have.

She sits in front of Grammy and next to Chad in the Cathedral, and they point out a few of the more questionable style choices that they can see. She wants to drink it in, though; it’s the first coronation they’ve ever seen, after all, and it’ll be the last one they see for the next twenty years. It’s been enough for it to require a capital letter most of the time, after all.

“So glad it’s not me in there,” Chad mutters, and Audrey manages not to look askance at him. It’s the first time any of their generation have said anything like that, after all. Not that they just weren’t going to stand before the Council, but that they had and were relieved to not have been chosen anyway.

Family pressure, she presumes, and feels her jaw tighten. She isn’t sure how much of aiming to be Queen – regnant or consort – was what she had wanted, and how much was what her family had wanted for her, and she doesn’t want to think about that right now.

Let Ben have his big day. Keep her eyes peeled for anything going wrong, not that there’s really anything she could _do_ about it. Think about the big questions, the big _problems_ , later.

She takes a deep breath, and settles in to watch Ben be crowned.

King Beast gives up his crown, and Prince Ben kneels to receive it. The atmosphere in the room grows taut as Fairy Godmother removes the wand from its protected plinth, even if she only holds it without igniting its full power. She taps it to Ben’s shoulder, and Audrey wonders whether everyone else was expecting a flash of light or whether that is only her experience.

And then Jane strikes.

 _Jane_. Quiet, dependable, unassuming Jane, who only in the last few days has even spoken in the AP classes which Audrey shares with her. Fairy Godmother’s own daughter.

She snatches the wand, her fae blood fuelling a lightning bolt that shatters the window and leaves multicoloured glass raining down to crash further on the floor. The lightning arcs and whips around the air of the church, and hands wrap around Audrey’s arms and tug her backwards. Her heart tightens in her throat.

Her side doesn’t burn.

The wand goes off like fireworks, leaves Jane spinning like she’s trying to control a too-powerful hose, but as the sparks go past Audrey’s eyes she starts to see… _something_.

She isn’t sure what it is. There are flashes of colours and sensations, sounds in her ears, _landscapes_ , pain pricking in her fingertips, lightning flashing in her bones. Raw power crackles in the very air, smelling like a thunderstorm, and she grabs Chad’s arm in a desperate attempt to hold herself in the room.

A blink, another one, and the images refuse to leave and she wonders wildly and desperately whether _this_ was what it was like for her mother to dream. And then abruptly the wild visions are gone again, only now Mal is gripping the wand with both hands, no more sparks flying as she holds its power in check, and Audrey does not know whether this is better or worse.

“Chad?” she says, quietly.

He does not reply.

Ben steps in front of Mal, wary as a lion tamer, but before either of them can speak green smoke curls in through the shattered window, coils around the pillar.

A choked sound leaves Grammy’s lips and her hands clutch at Audrey’s arm. Audrey tries to stand in front of her grandmother, as if it means _anything_ ; even Aurora, with magical shields in her blood, would be more use than Audrey right now. But it’s family, and it’s the right thing to do, even if it means nothing.

The green smoke unfurls, and Maleficent is standing there.

Maleficent. In Auradon.

Audrey realises that her scars are screaming. She had thought it was her imagination, but she realises that it’s real, isn’t just the adrenaline in her veins. Maleficent is… smaller, than she anticipated. The size of a human, which makes sense, but just didn’t match the power that has always radiated from the stories of her.

A flick of the wrist, and Mal throws the wand back to Fairy Godmother. Godmother whisks her wand, golden magic swirling, and–

Maleficent snaps her fingers. Green flashes in Audrey’s vision, and then she is stuck. Still. Her heart still beats, her body still breathes, but even her eyes are fixed forwards.

 _Non-reflex movements_ , her body provides. _Much easier for magic to affect._

And it is its own sort of horror, as all that they can do is watch. Watch Mal cry in front of her mother, watch her rip the wand from Maleficent’s greedy hands, watch Maleficent unfurl in more green smoke into a _dragon_.

This is not the tame, sanitised dragon of bedtime stories. Not even the manageable creature of Phillip’s tales. But neither is it an animal. Purple scales shimmer, white teeth flash, and Audrey can see too much intelligence to be comfortable in those green eyes. And the worst part is that she still cannot move, that her nerves are screaming from trying but she cannot _move_ even as she feels the wind from the dragon’s wings, hears the hiss of its breath, because every part of her wants to run or to hide or to get her grandmother to safety but she can do nothing.

The only ones moving are the four VKs. Every life in the room is in their hands, she realises, and her breath catches.

She has to trust them.

Then the dragon vanishes, and the Fairy Godmother, at least, can move again. Audrey can see a lizard on the floor, and Mal tearfully handing the wand back to Fairy Godmother. A whip of the wand, a whisper of golden magic, and they can move again.

Audrey clutches her side with one hand and her grandmother with the other; Leah has gone ashen, and she looks like she might faint until Prince Charming takes her arm to steady her. Then the moment passes, and Leah steadies herself and stands before them as a Queen again, and Audrey knows that things will, at least, pass.

Given everything, she doesn’t even feel jealous when Ben picks Mal up and twirls her through the air.

The pain in her side lingers, and she _will_ ask Fairy Godmother about it – if for no other reason than to give her something to distract her from her clear annoyance with Jane – but for now she sets it aside to face Mal again. She isn’t sure whether it might be understanding, in the look that passes between them, but despite everything that she expected…

She respects her. At least a little.

Mal bobs a curtsey first, and Audrey responds with a restrained but frankly better one, and an uncertain sort of laugh passes between them. She’s still not sure that they’ll ever be friends, but maybe… maybe they can both be a little bit better.

The party makes equals of them all. VKs and Auradon residents, royalty and not, even King Ben dancing with everybody else for the evening. She dances with Ben to show that there are no hard feelings; with Jay because, well, he dances well and they look good dancing together; she even shares one dance with Mal, and refrains from showing off too well how much more adept at dancing she is.

But she saves most of the dances for Lonnie.

Probably by morning, someone will spot them in the background of a picture, or the rumours will start to spread some other way. Audrey doesn’t care, as the slower music starts and she and Lonnie sway together, arms wrapped around each other. They’ll say it’s a rebound, they’ll use the wrong label for her sexuality, the dreaded words ‘gal pals’ might get trotted out. She’ll probably get compared to Queen Elsa, as though there’s only been one member of royalty across all the kingdoms who isn’t one hundred per cent heterosexual.

The last fireworks of the night go off at midnight, and Fairy Godmother swore that she wouldn’t be putting any little magical effects in but _Merryweather_ made no such promise, and Audrey _did_ get an excited text about two weeks ago about fire.

Patterns dance in the sky, painting a multitude of colours across Lonnie’s face. Her smile ties them all together.

She feels… oddly new. As if this is a second chance for her, as well.

“Is this the bit where I get to kiss you again?” she says to Lonnie, as the fireworks linger in colours that are technically not _impossible_ to achieve, but which magic does tend to help along.

Lonnie’s hands are warm on the small of her back. “I think it is,” she replies.

Audrey kisses her again, smiling and bright and _real_ , and at least, she can be sure, she did one thing right.


End file.
